Christmas memories

A 1960’s Christmas.

As a child, the Christmas holidays were my favoUrite time of the year.  My mother baked an abundance of special treats and emptied box after box as she decorated the house.  My father, a college professor, was on school break like my brother and me.  Because of Mom’s love of shopping and her eye for sales, every Christmas morning my brother and I were overjoyed to be overloaded with stuff from Santa.

I started liking Christmas less in my 20’s when I was married.  We couldn’t be in two places at once and wherever we were, it seemed we had disappointed either my parents or the in-laws.  Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or Boxing Day often involved a 100 km (60 mi) drive through a snow storm.

In my 30’s, there was a year when I didn’t go home on Christmas Day because I was having a disagreement with my brother.  Another year, I made my mother cry on Christmas Day after I complained about feeling nauseous from her smoking in the car (there was an unspoken rule in the family not to discuss Mom’s cigarettes).  Ugh.  The drama of the holidays in my younger life.

Something gradually shifted after I’d moved away in 2000 and grown up a bit.  I accepted that coming home for Christmas was all about Mom.  It wasn’t about me.  It was her holiday.  I disliked flying from Seattle at that time of year (snow storms, cancellations, overbooked flights, connection in Newark) but I just accepted it.  It was a gift to Mom.

This will be my second Christmas holiday since moving back to Nova Scotia.  My family understands that any holiday plans I make are contingent on weather.  I am not going to drive if the road conditions are nasty.  Last year on Christmas Day, we had the highest winds of the winter.  I stayed put and shuffled over to the neighboUrs’ house (I could see from there if the tiny house got blown over or rolled away) for a delicious Christmas Dinner with other local orphans.

Both years, I’ve attended the carol sing at the nearby church.  Sitting in the pews this year, I was filled with thoughts of my mother.  This is the church where my parents were married in 1958.  This is the church where my brother and I spoke 10 years ago at the 50^th wedding anniversary celebration for my parents.

Our last Christmas with Mom was in 2010 and I hope I was on good behavioUr.  I helped her make her signature cinnamon-bun ring for Christmas morning.  She’d been through two years of chemo but I’m going to guess it was her most joyful Christmas.  My niece was due in two months.  Mom knew she was finally going to get her best gift at 74: to become a grandmother.